Fancy woven fabrics such as jacquard and dobby weaves are commonly used in a variety of products, including apparel, domestics such as napery and drapery, home furnishings, and the like. As will be readily understood by those of ordinary skill in the art, jacquard woven fabrics typically are elaborately designed, since the nature of jacquard weaving enables the control of individual yarns during the weaving process. Similarly, dobby weaves are characterized by small, angular repetitive designs produced by the selective control of groups of yarns.
Fancy weaves are characterized by predetermined changes in the interlacing of the warp and filling yarns to define base fabric regions and patterned regions. In other words, these types of fabrics are constructed by altering the weave of the fabric in such a way that a pattern becomes visible in the fabric construction itself, even when a single type of yarn is used to form both the warp and filling. This is achieved through the use of varying float lengths of the warp and/or filling yarns in the patterned region as compared with those used to form the base fabric. The pattern may also be created by using alternating twills (e.g. through the use of a right hand twill for the base fabric and a left hand twill in the pattern.) Typically, the image appearing on the back of these fabrics is approximately the opposite of the design on the fabric face. For example, where the warp yarn is predominant on the face of the fabric, the filling yarns will be predominant in the same region on the back of the fabric. Because of the variety of patterns which can be created using these types of weaving methods, such fabrics are often preferred over plain woven fabrics for aesthetic reasons.
By using spun warp yarns and filament filling yarns, the contrast between the patterned areas and the base fabric areas in fancy weave fabrics can be greatly enhanced. This is particularly evident on dyed fabrics, due to the different optical characteristics of filament and spun yarns. In other words, since the pattern in the fabric is generally defined by alternating regions where the warp or filling are predominant on the fabric face, the different optical characteristics (e.g., as a result of the difference in reflectance, dye uptake, texture, etc.) serve to enrich the appearance of the pattern. While fabrics using a combination of spun and filament yarns can provide a desirable visual pattern, the fabric can tend to have a harsh hand in the regions where the filament filling yarns are predominant.
Methods for enhancing the hand of such fancy woven fabrics have typically involved abrading the fabric surface with abrasive rolls or flaps. While providing an improvement over the untreated fabrics, the abrading tends to undesirably weaken the fabrics. In addition, these treatment methods tend to reduce the visibility of the pattern, thereby adversely impacting the aesthetic characteristics of the fabric.